Enver Masud: Pentagon Transcripts, Official Records Belie ‘The 9/11 Commission Report’

By Enver Masud of The Wisdom Fund

http://www.twf.org/bio/EMasud.html

On December 17, 2010, truTV’s Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura — former Governor of Minnesota, examined the “idea that a missile or explosives — not a hijacked jetliner — damaged the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  I agree, and first wrote about it a few years ago.

I live less than a mile from the Pentagon, and began examining this issue in early 2002. The first question I asked when I looked at the Pentagon shortly after that tragic day in 2001 was, “where’s the plane?”

I began to suspect the official account of 9/11 when I learned that the U.S. war on Afghanistan was apparently planned prior to September 11, and possibly after U.S. negotiations with the Taliban for a pipeline broke down.

According to the BBC (September 18, 2001), Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

In April 2002 I wrote an article voicing doubts about the official account of 9/11, and on March 7, 2005 rebutted the official account of 9/11 in an article “What Really Happened on September 11 at the Pentagon” — among the most visited at The Wisdom Fund website (TWF.org).

Most of what Jesse Ventura revealed on December 17, 2010, and more, is described in my March 7, 2005 article, and expanded upon in my September 11, 2010 article “Pentagon Transcripts, Official Records Belie ‘The 9/11 Commission Report’” (original with exhibits, sources).

On September 12, 2001, news media had to have known that something was amiss when at the Dept. of Defense News Briefing “American Airlines”, “Flight 77″, “Boeing 757″, were not even mentioned, and reporters were being “threatened or, in fact, handcuffed and dragged away”.

Eventually, when the security camera video of “Flight 77″ was released by the Pentagon it included only one frame showing something — labeled “Approaching Aircraft” — moving parallel to the ground about 100 yards in front of the Pentagon.

This is the U.S. government’s evidence to support its claim that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and establishment news media have shown little interest in further investigation.

Indeed, the government’s own records — Pentagon transcripts, official reports, flight data recorder, and the laws of science belie “The 9/11 Commission Report”.
September 11, 2001: CNN News Report

Just minutes after the alleged attack, standing in front of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Jamie McIntyre, CNN’s senior Pentagon correspondent since November 1992, reported: “From my close up inspection there’s no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. . . . . The only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you could pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage — nothing like that anywhere around which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon.”

McIntyre continued, “If you look at the pictures of the Pentagon you see that all of the floors have collapsed, that didn’t happen immediately. It wasn’t till almost 45 minutes later that the structure was weakened enough that all of the floors collapsed.”

This news report apparently was not rebroadcast, and a few years later McIntyre claimed on CNN (Wolf Blitzer’s show) that he had been taken out of context.

Lt Col Karen Kwiatowski, who from her fifth-floor, B-ring office at the Pentagon, witnessed “an unforgettable fireball, 20 to 30 feet in diameter” confirms McIntyre’s account.

Writing in “9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out,” Kwiatowski noted, “a strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner. This visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the secretary of defense, who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a ‘missile’.”

Pentagon employee April Gallop, whose “desk was roughly 40 feet from the point where the plane allegedly hit the outside wall” stated in a sworn complaint (before the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York): “As she sat down to work there was an explosion, then another; walls collapsed and the ceiling fell in. Hit in the head, she was able to grab the baby and make her way towards the daylight showing through a blasted opening in the outside wall. There was no airplane wreckage and no burning airplane fuel anywhere; only rubble and dust.”

Barbara Honegger, military affairs journalist, reported in her personal capacity that a pilot sent by Gen Larry Arnold (NORAD) “reported back that there was no evidence that a plane had hit the building.” She added, “Multiple standard-issue, battery-operated wall clocks . . . stopped between 9:31 and 9:32-1/2 on September 11.”

Flight 77 is alleged to have struck the Pentagon at 9:38.

A diagram (derived from the “Pentagon Building Performance Report”, Figure 7.9) indicates a “Slab deflected upward” which is consistent with either an explosion below the slab, or an upward blow by a hard object.

Major General Albert Stubblebine, U.S. Army (ret) — former Commanding General of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, and head of Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence — stated in a video interview, “I don’t know exactly what hit it, but I do know, from the photographs that I have analyzed and looked at very, very carefully, it was not an airplane.”

Major Douglas Rokke, U.S. Army (ret) adds: “No aircraft hit the Pentagon. Totally impossible! You couldn’t make the turns with a 757. You couldn’t fly it in over the highway. You couldn’t fly it over the light poles. You couldn’t even get it that close to the ground because of turbulence.”

September 12, 2001: Pentagon News Briefing

At the September 12, 2001, Dept. of Defense (DoD) News Briefing by Assistant Secretary of Defense, Victoria Clarke, Ed Plaugher (fire chief of Arlington County), and others, “American Airlines”, “Flight 77″, “Boeing 757″ were not even mentioned.

How significant is this?

With the world’s news media assembled at the Pentagon on the day after the alleged attack on the Pentagon by Arab hijackers flying American Airlines Flight 77 — a Boeing 757 — “American Airlines”, “Flight 77″, “Boeing 757″ were not considered important enough to mention at the Pentagon News Briefing the day after the alleged attack!

Fire chief Ed Plaugher was asked by a reporter, “Is there anything left of the aircraft at all?” Plaugher responded, “there are some small pieces of aircraft … there’s no fuselage sections and that sort of thing.”

When asked, “Chief, there are small pieces of the plane virtually all over, out over the highway, tiny pieces. Would you say the plane exploded, virtually exploded on impact due to the fuel”, Plaugher reponded “You know, I’d rather not comment on that.”

The transcript reveals that reporters were being “threatened or, in fact, handcuffed and dragged away”.

This year, the transcript of the September 12, 2001 News Briefing was removed from the DoD website.

September 15, 2001: Pentagon News Briefing

At the September 15, 2001, Dept. of Defense (DoD) News Briefing by Mr. Lee Evey, Pentagon Renovation Manager, Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and others, it was apparent that there were lingering doubts about what had struck the Pentagon on September 11.

When Mr. Evey said, “the nose of the aircraft broke through this innermost wall of C Ring”, a reporter asked, “One thing that’s confusing — if it came in the way you described, at an angle, why then are not the wings outside? I mean, the wings would have shorn off. The tail would have shorn off. And yet there’s apparently no evidence of the aircraft outside the E Ring.” Evey replied, “Actually, there’s considerable evidence of the aircraft outside the E Ring. It’s just not very visible.”

Apparently, no one asked how “the nose of the aircraft” (a relatively weak component of the aircraft) remained sufficiently intact to penetrate the C Ring — the E Ring is the outermost ring.
‘Pentagon Building Performance Report’

In January 2003, the U.S. government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology released the “Pentagon Building Performance Report”.

Page 35 of this report reads: “An examination of the area encompassed by extending the line of travel of the aircraft to the face of the building shows that there are no discrete marks on the building corresponding to the positions of the outer third of the right wing. The size and position of the actual opening in the facade of the building (from column line 8 to column line 18) indicate that no portion of the outer two-thirds of the right wing and no portion of the outer one-third of the left wing actually entered the building.”

Had a Boeing 757 struck the Pentagon, its wings would probably have been found outside the Pentagon. But these wings were not found outside the Pentagon!
Photographs, and CNN’s Jamie McIntyre confirm this fact.

Page 36 of this report reads: “The height of the damage to the facade of the building was much less than the height of the aircraft’s tail. At approximately 45 ft, the tail height was nearly as tall as the first four floors of the building. Obvious visible damage extended only over the lowest two floors, to approximately 25 ft above grade.

This implies that whatever struck the Pentagon, couldn’t have been a Boeing 757.

Page 39 of this report reads: “Most likely, the wings of the aircraft were severed as the aircraft penetrated the facade of the building. Even if portions of the wings remained intact after passing through the plane of the facade, the structural damage pattern indicates that the wings were severed before the aircraft penetrated more than a few dozen feet into the building.”

As previously noted, these wings were not found outside the Pentagon!

From the preceding it is clear that the “Pentagon Building Performance Report” — prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineering Institute, and released by the U.S. government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology — contradicts the official account of 9/11.

‘Arlington County After-Action Report’

The “Arlington County After-Action Report” describes the occurrence of an event at the Pentagon minutes before the alleged strike of Flight 77, and the presence of Fort Myer Unit 161 at the Pentagon prior to impact.

Annex A, Page A-4 of this report states: “Captain Dennis Gilroy and his team were already on station at the Pentagon when Flight #77 slammed into it, just beyond the heliport. Foam 161 caught fire and suffered a flat tire from flying debris. Firefighters Mark Skipper and Alan Wallace were outside the vehicle at impact and received burns and lacerations. . . . Captain Gilroy called the Fort Myer Fire Department, reporting for the first time the actual location of the crash.”

Did Fort Myer Unit 161 go the Pentagon following an explosion — prior to the alleged strike of Flight 77?

It is consistent with the reporter’s question at the September 12 News Briefing, “Chief, there are small pieces of the plane virtually all over, out over the highway, tiny pieces. Would you say the plane exploded, virtually exploded on impact due to the fuel”?

It is consistent with April Gallop’s sworn complaint that “she was able to grab the baby and make her way towards the daylight showing through a blasted opening in the outside wall. There was no airplane wreckage and no burning airplane fuel anywhere; only rubble and dust.”

It is consistent with military affairs journalist Barbara Honegger’s account of “Multiple standard-issue, battery-operated wall clocks . . . stopped between 9:31 and 9:32-1/2 on September 11.”
Fort Myer Unit 161′s arrival at the Pentagon to put out a fire prior to the strike by “Flight 77″ is not consistent with the official account of 9/11.

‘American Airlines’ Flight Data Recorder

Pilots for 9/11 Truth state: “video captured by the parking gate cam is in direct conflict with the Aircraft Flight Data Recorder data released by the NTSB” (National Transportation Safety Board) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request. The “Pentagon Building Performance Report” states (page 14): “A Pentagon security camera located near the northwest corner of the building recorded the aircraft as it approached the building. Five photographs (figures 3.3 through 3.7), taken approximately one second apart, show the approaching aircraft and the ensuing fireball associated with the initial impact.”

On page 35 of this report we’re told, “The site data indicate that the aircraft fuselage impacted the building at column line 14 at an angle of approximately 42 degrees to the normal to the face of the building, at or slightly below the second-story slab.”

However, the NTSB animation (January 2002), according to Pilots for 9/11 Truth, shows an aircraft flying north of the Navy Annex, not leveling off, and being too high to have hit the Pentagon.
When confronted with this discrepancy, NTSB Chief Jim Potter said: “I have no comment on the existence of the discrepancies.”

Eyewitnesses state categorically that a plane (which they believed was Flight 77) flew north of the Citgo gas station (now the Navy Exchange) located west of the Pentagon on South Joyce Street at Columbia Pike, rather than flying south of the gas station as stated in official reports.

G-Force Would Have Destroyed the Boeing 757

Pilots for 9/11 Truth conclude: “Arlington’s unique topography and obstacles along American 77 ‘final leg’ to the Pentagon make this approach completely impossible”.
Flight 77 is alleged to have flown over Columbia Pike and the Virginia Department of Transportation communications tower located 1143 yards west of the Pentagon before striking the Pentagon at “530 miles per hour”.

The antenna on the VDOT tower has been determined to be 169 ft above the ground with a ground elevation of 135 feet (FCC Registration Number 1016111). The ground elevation of the Pentagon is 33 feet according to USGS.

This path would have taken Flight 77 south of the gas station at the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. Joyce Street, and over the intersection of Columbia Pike and Virginia Route 27.

Flight 77 would then have been over Pentagon grounds with about 500 feet remaining to level out and to strike the Pentagon “slightly below the second floor slab” at “an angle of approximately 42 degrees”.

The Columbia Pike and VA-27 intersection presents a roughly 20 feet tall barrier in the alleged path of Flight 77.

According to the “Pentagon Building Performance Report” (page 14), “The first photograph (figure 3.3) captured an image of the aircraft when it was approximately 320 ft (approximately 0.42 second) from impact with the west wall of the Pentagon. Two photographs (figures 3.3 and 3.7), when compared, seem to show that the top of the fuselage of the aircraft was no more than approximately 20 ft above the ground when the first photograph of this series was taken.”

Leaving aside the discrepancies between the official account of Flight 77, and the Flight Data Recorder (which NTSB refuses to answer), Pilots for 9/11 Truth calculated the force on the Boeing 757 at 34 Gs, i.e. 34 times the force due to gravity, at the point that it would have to transition from its downward flight to level flight.

With a virtual weight of about 8.5 million pounds, Flight 77 could not have leveled off before striking the Pentagon. It would have crashed at the intersection of Columbia Pike and VA-27. This alone is sufficient to refute the official account of “Flight 77″ — Flight 77 cannot have violated the laws of science.

Pilots for 9/11 Truth did another calculation by lowering the height of “Flight 77″ below that shown by the FDR. They lowered it to the top of the VDOT antenna.

With this very conservative case, they calculated the force on the Boeing 757 at 11.2 Gs. “11.2 Gs was never recorded in the FDR. 11.2 Gs would rip the aircraft apart” they wrote.

Impossible: Damage Path and Flight Path Aligned

With Flight 77 alleged to have struck the Pentagon at “an angle of approximately 42 degrees”, the flight path and the damage path cannot possibly form a straight line.

Flying at “an angle of approximately 42 degrees” the Boeing 757′s starboard wing would have struck the west wall of the Pentagon before the port wing. This would cause the aircraft to veer to the right, and the damage path would be in line with the aircraft’s new heading — not with the aircraft’s heading prior to impact (assuming — miraculously — the plane was able to penetrate the C Ring).

However, the “Pentagon Building Performance Report” Figures 6.2 and 6.6 show that the flight path and damage path (damage path also illustrated in the “Arlington County After Action Report”, page 23) do form a straight line extending from the center-line of the fuselage of the aircraft to where the “the nose of the aircraft broke through this innermost wall of C Ring”.

The flight path and damage path depicted forming a straight line in Figures 6.2 and 6.6 violate the laws of science. This alone is sufficient to refute the official account of “Flight 77″ — Flight 77 cannot have violated the laws of science.

Therefore, what looks like a puff of smoke — labeled “Approaching Aircraft” in the security camera video, cannot possibly be a Boeing 757.

Conclusion

To conclude, the official account of Flight 77 — supported only by one frame from a security camera showing a puff of something approaching the Pentagon — is contradicted by the transcripts of Pentagon News Briefings conducted on September 12 and 15; by the “Pentagon Building Performance Report”; by the “Arlington County After-Action Report”; by the FBI’s exhibit on phone calls from Flight 77; and by the Flight Data Recorder provided by the NTSB.

The official account of Flight 77 contradicts the laws of science. Flight 77 could not have withstood the calculated G-force when it would have had to level out — about 100 yards before striking the Pentagon — with “the top of the fuselage of the aircraft . . . no more than approximately 20 ft above the ground”. The flight path of a Boeing 757 traveling at “530 miles per hour”, striking the Pentagon at “an angle of approximately 42 degrees”, and the resulting damage path inside the Pentagon cannot possibly form a straight line as depicted in the Pentagon Building Performance Report.

On September 10, 2001, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon “cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions”. It is alleged that the section of the Pentagon destroyed on September 11, 2001 housed records of DoD spending, and the personnel for monitoring that spending.

—
Enver Masud, an engineer, served as Acting Chief of the Strategic and Emergency Planning Branch at the U.S. Department of Energy, set up and directed the Operations Review Division at the Iowa Commerce Commission, and has consulted for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank in Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia. His book “9/11 Unveiled” is a free download at The Wisdom Fund — http://www.twf.org